The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the performance of corporate acquisitions between the pre- and post-SOX periods, using both short-term and long-term analyses.
The sample includes 9,463 mergers and tender offers undertaken by publicly traded US firms between 1996 and 2009. The authors used the standard event study methodology for short-term performance analysis; Berkovitch and Narayanan (1993) method to identify merger motives; and standard benchmark adjusted return on assets (sales) (Barber and Lyon, 1996) and buy-and-hold abnormal returns (Mitchell and Stafford, 2000) to analyze long-term performance.
Compared to the pre-SOX period, US acquirers experience significantly higher announcement returns in the post-SOX period; the results are robust to various controls like bidder, target and deal characteristics, bidder management quality, and product market competition. Similar results (in favor of post-SOX US acquirers) are obtained with long-term post-acquisition operating and stock performance analyses.
This paper only addressed domestic acquisitions.
This paper adds to the growing body of research on the impact of SOX on publicly traded US corporations. By examining corporate acquisitions, an important long-term investment decision for a firm, the paper shows that despite the complex nature of SOX, substantial compliance costs and the unintended negative consequence it engendered, the act had a beneficial impact in an important area of corporate finance.
